


Cream and Sugar

by obirain



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, Swearing, allusion to death but no major/minor character, and a whole lot of it. i'm sorry., implied grief but nothing intense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28759926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obirain/pseuds/obirain
Summary: Through a series of early mornings and brief conversations over caf, Poe realizes just how much he cares about you.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Reader, Poe Dameron/You
Kudos: 14





	Cream and Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> Request from Tumblr: Poe Dameron + this quote: “He stepped down, trying not to look too long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.” - Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (a sudden realization of adoration)

Poe Dameron’s a lucky man, and he knows it.

Talent through the roof, a reputation to match. A month-long winning streak in Sabacc and a winning smile, too. But now, shocked awake in a stuffy room, one leg hanging off the mattress and his pillow over his head, he feels luckiest that he sleeps in a single.

Not that that’ll matter, though, if the banging wakes up the whole barrack.

“Dameron! _Dameron!_ Wake up; it’s almost five!”

_Almost_ five, but not yet. Not even dawn. Early. Too early. But Poe stumbles out of bed anyway, tripping over his boots one after the other in the pitch blackness and slamming his hand against the keypad.

“Fucking four-fifty—”

“Oh, shut it. It’s ten minutes.”

“Ten pretty fucking important minutes, too—”

“Might not be if you went to bed before one once in a while. _And that’s none of my business, I know,”_ she adds before he can interrupt. Poe closes his mouth reluctantly, and she _laughs._ Like bells pealing through a rosy morning, towards the stars that still shine in the West.

He knows those stars well: a thousand suns to guide him home. Stars like gods, stars like friends. But when Poe sees them again in her smiling eyes—

He has to look away.

She feels it too and drops her gaze, tightening her grip on the cups of caf, pushing one of them into his hands. Her fingertips are warm to the touch. He shivers.

“Drink up; it’s cold out there.” She laughs again—with a nervous note Poe hadn’t heard before. “Black. Three sugars. Or whatever passes for sugar these days... You’re lucky I like you, Dameron.”

And she passes away into the stilted light of the narrow tunnel, out to the hangar where she spends her every waking hour, where the darkness is only just beginning to fade.

And Poe looks after her and sips his drink. Scalding still, and stomach-churning just like all Resistance caf. He has to admit, though: he’s fond of it. Not least because of her. Because she takes the time to fix it for him. Because of her warm fingers against his calloused skin, searing lightning, healing, burning—

He sighs and slams the steel door shut. He’s lucky she likes him. Lucky as hell.

* * *

By dinner time, the sky darkens. And after dinner it pours. Maker, it’s _loud._ So loud Poe _almost_ can’t hear the rickety old caf machine starting up behind him. But he _does_ hear it. He freezes, looks around, and there she is. Soaking wet from head to toe, leaving a puddle on the floor... That’ll be a slipping hazard, to be sure. Poe should let someone know. But for the time being, he... doesn’t really care. 

“For me?” He joins her at the machine, nudging her arm as she pours another two cups of caf. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Unfortunately not. It’ll be a late night and I need all the caffeine I can get.”

She pours a packet of “sugar” in each and a healthy dose of powdered cream. Poe’s close to her—their shoulders touch—but she insistently avoids his eyes. He pauses at that, distant, faint alarm bells ringing, but she’s a morning person, after all. Maybe she’s just tired. Maybe Indigo Squadron’s a bit more banged up than usual.

“You keep drinking caf this late, I’ll be waking _you_ up in the mornings,” he jokes. She doesn’t answer. “Or I could... I could stay up with you, if you want. Help you finish your work.”

Another pause. “Thanks,” she says quietly. “But you’re a pilot, not a mechanic. This is a shift I’ll just have to work—”

“Or I could just hang out, keep you company—”

“Poe!” She slams her hand down on the counter hard enough to shake the cups of caf. “Just— _please,_ Poe—go to bed and leave me alone.”

“Oh. _I understand—”_

But she doesn’t stay to let him finish; she presses down the lids, shoots him one last look, and leaves him at the caf machine. Out of the mess hall, out to the hangar and the darkness and the pouring rain. Poe raps his knuckles against the metal, licking his lips. 

Fuck. 

That did not go well. 

What the hell’s the matter with her? He’s her... her friend; he wasn’t... _unfriendly,_ was he? No, he’s done her worse before. Hell, he cussed her out this morning—and she just _laughed_ while her eyes glittered. But she’d never snapped at him before. No, maybe she’s just—

_Really not a night owl._

“Hey, Dameron! _Dameron! Earth to Poe?”_

He blinks and stares at the corner of the mess hall, his eyes for some reason struggling to focus. About six other pilots are crowded around their favorite table—the one he’d been sitting at before his—uh— _lapse in judgment._ Lastik’s waving him over with exaggerated landing signals and a tone you’d only take with children. 

“Fucked it up with another one, huh?”

“No, no, I—” Poe shakes his head. _Another one? The hell’s he talking about?_ No, _fuck—_

“It’s... not like that.”

“Can’t charm ’em all, hotshot. You in for a round of jet juice?”

“Not tonight.”

“Aw, come on, Dameron. Pure Jelucan!”

Poe glowers at him. _Isn’t it obvious he doesn’t want to talk? He’s done. Fucking. Done—_

“Jelucan or not, I’m gonna hit the rack.”

“Hit the rack? Fuckin’ eight-thirty—”

“I’ve got an early morning tomorrow,” Poe interrupts with a curt pat on his shoulder. He doesn’t wait for him to respond before heading back to the barracks. 

_What an ass._

He shakes his head. It doesn’t matter. But even when he’s stripped down to his underwear and splashed his face with cold water, he can’t shake that feeling, that somehow all of this has gone terribly wrong. And even when he’s lying in bed at fucking nine at night, he can’t shake the image of her storming away. Her eyes had been red and watery and he’d chalked it up to fatigue. He wasn’t so sure anymore. 

If he were a better man, maybe, he’d get dressed again, head down to the hangar. Hold up his hands and apologize. Cut the jokes, commit, listen better. He almost does, too. Alternatively, though, it’s impossible. Disastrous, absurd. There’s no fixing this. Not right now. Not at nine at night. 

So he pulls his pillow over his head and screws his eyes shut. 

* * *

There’s no knock on the door come five a.m, but Poe’s up anyway. His neck is stiff and his feet are cold but his body’s wide awake. Maybe he doesn’t need a wake-up call anymore; maybe she’s fucked up his circadian rhythm for good. He can squeeze his eyes shut as much as he wants, but there’s no forcing himself back to sleep. 

So he sits up, gets dressed. Washes his face, makes his bed. The light is still cold in the hallway and barely there in the East. He can see the hangar from here, and the Indigo Squadron where she works. There’s movement and the briefest glimpse of the top of her head. Everything in him clenches. 

_Does she remember? Can she feel it? Feel it in her gut as she worked through the night, as it haunted his sleep and settled in his joints?_ He should ask her, just to be sure, but he’s not sure where to begin. 

So he doesn’t, not when he returns to the hangar with two cups of caf—black, three sugars in one hand; one sugar and cream in the other. Poe clears his throat but she doesn’t hear him, her whole upper body beneath the X-Wing. He sighs.

“Morning, sunshine.”

“Damn it,” he hears, slightly muffled, as she pulls herself out. There are grease marks across her face—probably from where she’s wiped the sweat from her forehead—and circles under her red-rimmed eyes; she looks at him evenly, neutrally. Is this how Poe usually looks in the mornings?

“I, uh, thought you could use a pick-me-up.” _Fuck, why does he feel so awkward?_ “I can just... set this here if you want. Wanna keep working.” 

He can’t _for the life of him_ read her eyes—not until she sighs, and her whole frame collapses. Just a little. 

“I don’t know if I can,” she says finally. “Probably could use a break, huh?”

Poe blinks as what feels like every muscle in his body relaxes at once. He hands her her cup; her fingers are cold. She leans up against the hull of the X-Wing and pats the ground beside her. The concrete is freezing—still damp with last night’s rain—but her body next to his is warm. He shivers.

They drink their caf in silence. The East slowly pales and the stars fade away, and in the growing light he can see for the first time the Indigo Squadron in its entirety. 

Yesterday, a group of nine. Today, three. 

Poe sighs. 

“Listen, I’m—I’m sorry. About last night. It was... shitty of me.”

“It was shitty of me, too.”

_“No,_ no—” he clenches and unclenches his fist. “You did what you had to do. _I_ was being an ass. I’m sorry.”

She’s silent for a long time. Poe drums his fingers on his knee.

“No,” she says quietly. “I didn’t... have to. I just... couldn’t leave—”

“I know.”

“I’m so tired.”

“I know.”

Poe feels her cold fingers wrap around his hand. His breath catches. And when he feels her head on his shoulder, his heart just about stops. 

Her breaths are so even, so steady; Poe’s sure that if she sits here long enough, she’ll fall asleep. Sure enough when he looks down, her eyes are closed. The sun is rising, shining gold upon her face, a day beginning, healing, cleansing—

He can feel it in his bones, in his tendons and metacarpals as he squeezes her hand in return. 

“Don’t sleep now,” he whispers.

“Mm. Fuck off.”

Poe laughs clear as daylight, and she laughs along with him—muffled though she is in his jacket. He holds her hand more tightly; her fingers respond immediately. He could sit here forever, he thinks. Cold and warm, morning and night. Silver and gold as the sun breaks through the last few clouds and shines the stars away—

And he intends to watch every minute of it. 


End file.
